Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine - Synapsis Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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ALUMNI ASSOCIATION DONALD B. THORBURN, D. O. fTT EAR FRIENDS: l It is a privilege not given to many people to have the oppor- tunity of reorganizing their hves in the light of maturity. With most people the transition from childhood through boyhood to manhood and its career, is so gradual that the strings of one phase jvirtly control the succeeding one and our past often is inseparable from and too completely controls our future. We are limited in what we can undertake by the restrictions, self imposed, in our earlier years. ou, totlay. form the really privileged class. You are start- ing on a new life liut with the M ' isdom of accumulated years. You are starting on a new and entirely different phase of your existence

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THE 193 DEAN EDGAR O. HOLDEN, A.B., D.O. Sigma Phi Epsilon Iota Tau Sisn Central High School, Philadelphia. A. B. University of Pennsylvania, 1916. D. O. Phila. College of Osteopathy, 1922.

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ALUMNI ASSOCIATION and doing it with a specialized training. The long period of training on the nentral drill-gronnd of academic edncation was sufficient to interrupt the contixiuity of the thread connecting you with the pre- vious years. Consequently you are left free and unfettered to begin the career for which you have now been fitted. More, I say again, is it given to you than to the average mortal, to begin life in the light of experience of mature judgment and of an unusual training. You are being born again but this time born a man. How often we hear the cry, Oh, that I could live my life over again with what I know now, how differently I would live it! You have that chance. You have been given a fresh start and your responsibility this time is heavier. If I could wish for you one thing more than another, it is that you be given a true vision. A vision of the things really worth while. Very little is accomplished without an ideal toward which we may strive. A life withovit a definite objective is an aimless one that turns off with each little beckoning bypath, ending blindly as the path obscures. We lose so much when we stray from the high road. Your goal established, lay definite plans for attaining it. Re- member it is a new life. What you have been given is training and preparation. The application and development of it rests in your hands. If you end your education when you graduate you can still make a living and do many people good but to scale the heights of accomplishment you must continue your education and develop- ment. Go the whole way. Your li H ' s have now been given over to service for others. That means a certain amount of self-denial. It also means that you will have in your hands the ability to make yourself the happiest people on earth. We do that by helping others. You have been given opportunity and training above your fel- lows. You have consecrated your lives to healing of the wounds, mental and physical, of your fellowmen. You have put your hand to the plough. Make a straight furrow. The life of a physician will call for every talent that heaven has vouchsafed to you. Give them all. I ijromise you that the reward will be the greater as you give greater service. In your new life be worthy. Be worthy of your i arents, your school, your profession and — yourself. Donald B. Thorburn, D. O. President, ilumniiyissociation.